Silk Lilies

A little abstract but I'm happy with the colors.

5"x7" Oil on canvas board

Faces 14

Though it's still a limited pallet, I found a way to work in a couple more colors.


5"x7", Oil, canvas panel

Faces 13

I found that counting brush strokes helps me overcome a tendency I have of not starting with enough paint on the brush. It shifts the fear of running out of paint to running out of stokes.

Been enjoying Katheryn Law's posts about her PKR workshop

5"x7", Oil, canvas panel

Faces 12

One of the new things I'm learning from doing this series, is to look for facial and hair color relationships. Until now I hadn't consciously tried painting a combination of fair skin dark hair in a portrait. There's so many other similarities and differences to explore.

5"x7", Oil, canvas panel

Faces 8

Still busy getting the features in place but I know that I'll get to where I can express the character.

Faces 7

Back into oil color for a bit.

Faces 6

Profiles are sometimes easier, but I've a lot to learn yet. I'm working from a front and side view photo,comparing the two helps me enormously.

Faces 5

I need to remember these are just color sketches. Spent part of the week laboring over another 5x7, making it worse with every added effort. This portrait was done quicker, and more confident. I'm learning to show facial details by shaping a shadow or light area to suggest them.

Faces 4

Starting to get a feel for the contours of the face, still kind of shaky about getting parts in the right place in relation to the whole though.
I've heard a portrait discribed as "a painting of a face, with something wrong with the mouth" Hopefully not allways!



5"x7", Acrylic, Portrait, canvas panel

Faces 3

I like the idea of doing a series! This portrait has a lot fewer brush strokes, I managed to get the colors and values on the first try and decided to stop. Placement is the other part of the equation and in the best cases is guided by intuition.



5"x7", Acrylic, Portrait, canvas panel

Faces 2

this man's skin color is nearer to pink, and I don't feel I got the shadow colors just right. I know when the two are right there's a sort of color vibration that happens.


5"x7", Acrylic, Portrait

Faces 1

I've had a great time watching the work of Karin Jurick. her 100 Faces series is really inspiring! So inspiring I want to try my own series.

(Face number 1) I've heard that green works as a shadow color, I tried it, it worked! Still a little timid with it, maybe bolder next time.


5"x7", Acrylic, Portrait

China Ditch

I had two goals for this painting; one was to invent forms and show them by value / temperature contrasts, second to show aerial color perspective, so warm and intense in the foreground, and relatively cooler and less intense with distance. The photo I'm working from is kind of hazy, and near black & white, kind of a big job for a small painting.

5"x7", Acrylic, landscape

Mountain Sunrise

A nice place to wake up.



5"x7", Acrylic, landscape,

Leaf Hopper

I'm aiming at getting shapes to transition light to dark. (about the number 5 of this subject) A little smoother than the rest, and more fun to do. Getting the blend to work while the acrylic paint is wet is important because it all gets darker as it dries. So I'm working in an alla prima technique, taking a new canvas rather than trying to touch things up.

Snow in the Owyhees

A painting of China Ditch Canyon.



5"x7" Acrylic on canvas panel

Field Daisy

Still aiming for simplicity


5"x7" Acrylic on canvas panel

First Snow

This is Melba Butte near to where we live. Painted from a photo.


5"x7" Acrylic on canvas panel

Small Tulips

Painting from memory, this is kind of a color exercise.


7"x5" Acrylic on canvas panel sold

Low Clouds

Naomi and I live in the Snake River Valley, this view is of the Owyhee Mountains. I've noticed that the mountains seem to generate their weather and form clouds. This place on the drive home is always interesting.



7"x5" Acrylic on canvas panel